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There were good days and bad days.
Most days, they holed themselves up in Doug’s room. Catch-up. Endless pages of information to devour with meticulous, unwavering attention. Relearning silence before noise. Warlock would peer over his shoulder with feigned interest, slumping against his selfsoulfriend’s back for as long as he dared before retreating to sit by the window. Every day he turned his face toward the sun and tried to drag Doug out into the daylight with him.
On a rare day of high spirits and perfect weather, Warlock managed to cajole him into a trip to Golden Gate Park. They brought a picnic lunch and gazed up at the Dreaming Celestial, ignoring the gawking tourists while Warlock mimicked them and snapped hundreds of photos of his own. It was the first happy new memory up until a half dozen agents swept in to cart Warlock away for deportation. Those high spirits saw Warlock cowering for hours, discorporated in a corner of his cell; the perfect weather saw Doug hiking back to the port with his fists shoved in his pockets, shaking with unvoiced fury and the same old helplessness.
SWORD apologized, but there weren’t any good days after that.
Only the day when Kitty Pryde came home.
Her homecoming was the talk of Utopia. A joyous lilt lifted even the gruffest of voices, and Doug made every excuse to tarry where he could hear it, grasping at vicarious celebration. Lost had been inequivalent after all — a relief, but little preparation for the complexities of Found.
Kitty was supposed to come to him. She was meant to appear at his door one day, frantic and frustrated and happy like no one else had been, snatching the decision out of his hands as she crushed him in a hug so long overdue. She’d talk and talk and it would be so easy to pretend with her, finally something would be easy.
The plan hadn’t accounted for phasing difficulties and containment chambers and an endless stream of visitors to Med-Bay. It was simple enough to call up the proper security feed and take the occasional peek: Piotr a constant fixture at her side, Kurt popping in whenever he had a moment to spare, friend after friend swinging by to welcome her home, dozens of people that Doug couldn’t even name without opening the database files. Even trapped in silence, she was by far the most popular person on the island. It wasn’t surprising, but it certainly made everything more difficult.
Privacy would be best, wouldn’t it? Doug drummed his fingers absentmindedly on his work station as he watched Kitty force a friendly smile that didn’t entirely reach her eyes. The feed wasn’t crystal clear; he could have been mistaken. He hoped he was.
One day of companionable isolation. Two. Three.
Doug wasn’t hiding, he was simply waiting for a moment alone. Letting her rest from the swarm of activity. Planning the right words. Steeling himself for the distrust he was sure to see in her, the same one most of his teammates shared. Not hiding.
His chance finally arrived one evening when Kitty’s usual entourage shipped out on a mission. None of the big brains swooped in to run tests or fiddle with her cell, and best of all, no one had bothered to engage Danger’s Med-Bay locks. Doug hadn’t yet figured out a way to interfere with her commands without her noticing, and he didn’t want to make an enemy of his old favorite program.
He took the long way down to Med-Bay, heart thudding in his chest and a maelstrom whirling in his head, not anything he could work into words but—something, more than last week. Energy to pretend long enough to keep Kitty from worrying.
A faint whisper of familiar static stalled him in the doorway to Med-Bay; he wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting to catch Kitty alone. Walls of techno-organics encircled her containment chamber, a castle built around a most cherished treasure. Warlock’s face pressed so close to the glass window that it was a wonder his expression wasn’t engraved there. He babbled on too quietly for Doug to hear, alternating between an exuberant high and a troubled low with astonishing speed. In only a handful of stolen moments he crammed in more words than he’d offered anyone else on the island.
Eavesdrop, run, or steal Warlock’s moment. Poor options. Momentum brought Doug’s knuckles to the door, and he rapped loudly to alert them to his presence.
Warlock startled and jerked away at once, castle walls crumbling as he shifted back to a compact form. Relief flashed in the lights of his eyes, the same way it did every time he spotted his selfsoulfriend, but a guilty little twist lurked in his welcoming grin. He hadn’t normalized his form, or had at least skipped some crucial step that left his features jarringly unsynchronized, a humanoid bone structure with forced alien features. Before Doug could parse exactly what that slip meant, it all disappeared under a disapproving scowl. [Didn’t we agree to greet Kitty together?]
“You’re one to talk,” Doug huffed under his breath. There wasn’t any force to it, a mere stalling tactic before he finally stepped forward into Kitty’s line of vision.
How long had it been since he saw her last? A month, maybe two. His grip on time was so tenuous, the old days blurring together and the new days even less tangible. Two months or a hundred, it was all the same, a weight he couldn’t fathom and a mystery that didn’t even bear solving. The pieces weren’t in reach. Maybe all ghosts felt that way.
Kitty was reaching too, hands pressed against the glass viewing window of her containment chamber, desperate to hold onto something, anything, as she tried to process the sight of him. Her jaw tightened, and she turned her eyes to Warlock for confirmation, like this was a lesson she’d learned before, hope kept at bay by shock, disbelief, and a gut-wrenching devastation that would’ve left her pale and weak-kneed in normal circumstances.
But a nod from Warlock was all it took.
Doug? Her teeth snagged at her bottom lip, worrying at it in obvious distress.
“Hi,” he said simply. It was embarrassing how much his voice wavered on that single word.
Oh God, Kitty mouthed. It’s really you, it’s you and you’re all grown up and, and I can’t even…you can’t even hear me and…
“Kitty, Kitty, Kitty,” he chided. Doug shook his head, walking all the way up to her chamber so he could rest his forehead against the glass, and he actually smiled. “You think I can’t read lips?”
Though Kitty scrunched up her face into a most dreadfully insulted pout, her eyes still rejoiced. So you mean I’ve been stuck here miming at people for days for no reason?
“Oh.” Doug leaned back and tilted his head thoughtfully. All that time watching frustrated reunions and it never even occurred to him to offer his services. “I can interpret for you if needed, yes.”
She held up a hand before he could get any further. No, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t, I just… The reality of it all was staring to sink in, but she fought the silence far better than he did — ironically so.
What took you so long?
Doug shrugged with one shoulder. He wasn’t sure if she meant the past few days or the past few years, and didn’t have much to offer for either.
No, don’t answer that, that was a stupid question. But when did you, how did…ugh, listen to me. Can we have a redo? Kitty shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, and took a great big and perfectly useless breath before smiling so warmly she almost put Warlock to shame.
Welcome home, Doug. I missed you.
“Welcome back, Kitty.”
Awkward silence caught up to them at last, but Kitty didn’t even care. Silence with him around was a treasure, and she could stare at him for days and never tire of it, letting his solemn yet animated face overwrite so many unwanted memories. She kept catching him staring in return, and laughter caught in her throat when his eyes shyly darted away, caught so suddenly and painfully that her eyes welled up with tears.
Oh, she mumbled, wiping at her face, I keep forgetting I can do that.
“…My apologies, Kitty.”
Making her cry was an awful homecoming gift, but she shook off his fumbling as easily as before.
Yeah, you better apologize, Ramsey. I’ve done a lot of it over the years, you know.
“I—” She was joking and Doug knew it, so it didn’t quite hit home. “Sorry about that, too.”
Kitty crossed her arms and floated there eying him intently. And you wept and wept over me too, right? Heartache number one?
Without thinking, Doug clapped a hand over his heart, and just like that the remaining tension broke.
I really did miss you, she sighed. Kitty would breathe it with every breath if she still had them to spare, but it didn’t exactly make for excellent conversation. Luckily, with him she had dozens of fall-backs, and it had been almost a decade since they got to talk shop. So. How’s the future treating you?
“Dreadfully. They have me using some hunk of junk with what they’ve assured me is revolutionary technology.” Doug waved a hand dismissively, slipping easily onto the path she’d forged. This was a script he knew how to follow — or a script in Warlock’s sense, a program he could run effortlessly, a home that finally fit. “Hardly up to the quality of the PrydeTech I’m used to. It’s a terrible struggle.”
That’s the very first thing on my list once I’m out of this thing, I swear. And I’m behind too! Imagine all the neat new stuff I can—don’t you look at me like that.
Doug ducked his head, that indulgent smirk disappearing in an instant, then went and fetched a chair. If he raised it to the highest mark and sat with his legs folded underneath him, he was just tall enough to still be eye-to-eye with her viewing window. “Well, come on then. What should I look into in the meantime?”
Can’t wait, huh? This will be out of date, but…
Kitty dictated a verbal blueprint so detailed that he had to rummage nearby for a pen and paper to transcribe it all, unwilling to let a word escape him. She rattled the schematics off without pause, like she was used to keeping a list of things that reminded her of him, like this was one of the ways she passed the time while careening through space. Her lost time. Doug wished he could offer greater solace than mere attention; all evaluation implied they should have this in common, but the similarities scattered at a glance.
Most of his effort went into the construction of questions specially designed to send her veering off course into countless rants and anecdotes. Doug wasn’t sure why everyone was so partisan over operating systems, but Kitty laughed long and hard when he offered to write a compromise.
“Is that a dare?”
Yeah. It is. She didn’t even try to wipe the grin from her face.
They chatted so long that they didn’t even notice the half-silence any more, her voice clear in his head with every inflection intact. Kitty tried to mess with him once, slipping into Skrull halfway through a sentence, but he replied in the same without batting an eye. The topic of alien languages reminded her of just what else he’d missed, and she paused dramatically, trying to think up a clever way to spring the question. Enthusiasm got the better of her.
Doug, have you even realized how many shows you’ve got to catch up on?
“Yes, actually.”
Kitty’s eyes lit up. You checked?
“I…have a great deal of free time,” Doug offered vaguely. His unwavering attention on info-gathering may have wavered. Once or twice. “You’re missing some key releases as well, Kitty. There was a certain reboot movie while you—we were away.”
Noting his judgmental tone, Kitty pulled a sour yet oddly excited face. A bad movie night sounded like the perfect cure for everything. Don’t you dare see it without me, Doug. I don’t care if it’s brilliant or total crap, when I get out of this thing we’re going to the movies. Deal?
“Deal,” he agreed without hesitation.
…Also hugs.
“If you can pry Warlock off of you, sure.”
Kitty laughed so brightly he felt it echo warm and wonderful in his chest. Yet soon the feeling faded, the spell broken, and the same old chill seeped back into his air. Everything told him it was time to go, and Kitty saw it too.
You’ll come back, right? No tone to hold her worry, but the crease of her brow showed it well enough. Kitty expected him to disappear the moment he left her sight. And tell me what you’ve been up to?
Doug raised a hand to the window and pressed his fingers against the glass in a Vulcan’s salute. The context was skewed, but Kitty caught his drift immediately and returned the gesture. She waited so many years to be this close to him, a thin pane of glass the only thing separating them, but however infuriating the circumstances, she couldn’t help but laugh at his feeble attempt at comfort. He was home to stay; Kitty could wait a little bit longer.
I’ll take that as a promise.